An interesting day in the Kananaskis today, Dec 1st. The Nakiska ridgetop weather station told the story at 6 am, it was -2 C up there and -15 C down in Canmore where I had to scrape hard to get the frost off of my windshield. When we got to the Galatea parking lot it was above 0 C and the snow was moist. Moist snow all the way to Sinatra Falls where the sun peaked out and started dollops of snow falling from the steep rockwalls. There was pinwheeling happening down both sides of drainage, given the huge amount of mountain over our heads we opted to turn tail and skedaddle. I didn't expect to see a sun and heat avalanche hazard there today. There are windslabs sitting at the bottom of the route and there is enough snow there to avalanche. Our walking away coincided with a thick low cloud cover blotting out the sun and stopping the pinwheeling, of course, but the snow remained moist.
Back at Barrier Dam it was well below zero, dry snow and good ice on the seeps there. We salvaged some climbing.
Happy trails,
Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com
Sinatra Falls Dec 1:
